Have you ever felt that reading too much fucked you up irreversibly?

I've been deep diving into literature for the past 4 years (i'm 33) and now everything feels dumb, almost any other form of media a surrogate, even human relationships are subjected to a complete different light. But in a tiring way, like if too many veils were torn and there's nothing but disillusion between you and reality. I kinda miss the person i was before, dumber but happier, with scraps of dreams here and there.

Sorry english is not my first language.

Ps. i used a lot of /lit/ charts and they were awesome.

I remember feeling similar the first time I read Brothers Karamazov, but it went away after a year or so. I couldn't stand any movies, tv shows or videogames during that time and irl people felt shallow. Now I'm back into enjoying things again, but my taste have changed a bit. For example I can relax playing some old Need for Speed game of Call of Duty (which is pretty dumb entertainment, I admit), but I never play games that focus on stories now, like The Witcher or Death Stranding. Especially when the game tries to be dramatic and make me feel emotional. I just can't take them seriously, so it feels like a miserable waste of time. When I want storytelling I just go for books. Very rarely a movie or a tv show. I've grown comfortable viewing 99% of media as just a simple entertainment, and I just can freely ignore it. Whatever. I don't know if I helped you. My case of Brothers Karamazov may not be that serious, I know that there are books that are much heavier that can fuck you up if you really delve into them. I don't know what you've been reading, but I think it's wrong to miss being dumb before. I think, you should find comfort in being more mature.

>>24478940 (OP)
>only 4 years
Lmfao

>>24479485
Thank you for your feedback, I really appreciate it.
>I think, you should find comfort in being more mature
Well yes, but i think the real assertion in my case would be i should find comfort in being more lonely. Since reading, a kind of loneliness you can't cope with as you used before, with the usual means. This is not a feeling of superiority (books humbled me down, if anything).
Anyways i read politics, essays, some religion. Some philosophy. I like controversial books, but also classics. And love 20th century french literature (i'm Italian).

>>24479511
I did read before but didn't have the same amount of time, and it was a casual approach. BUT, i'm so happy i've got to read some books at this age, instead of as a 20 something university student trying to get pussy with Camus, or for a tone.

return to cave
a lot of prolific writers felt the same and it is not uncommon to read in their self reflections that they devoted their life to books to cope and lament how they wish they had had the constitution to live and appreciate life more typically free of neurosis and paralysis. knowledge can be empowering and liberating, literature marvelous and/or distracting but there is always a cost as a short-circuit end unto itself - unless you also become a writer and propagate the cycle of course

what use is reading to your life if you spend all your time doing more reading? you may feel that way now but you will also see in coming years how richly you have tilled the soil of your garden as life's experiences implant and evolve with you. if you have spent 4 years reading /lit/ charts you may also just want to change your reading habits to different forms and aims

wow 4 years you must have read everything in that huge amount of time. are you a professor or something?

>>24478940 (OP)
Hey I actually wrote a short story based around this phenomenon

>>24479673
The cure is sharing. Simplified: Positive emotions, when shared, get multiplied by people, and you feel more happy, and negative emotions, when shared, get divided amongst people, and you feel less sad. If you don't share any of your emotions, every one of them is more difficult to bear. (Women do it all the time to relief from the weight of dealing with emotions and thoughts individually. It's like they're almost wired to dealing with them collectively, and almost incapable of the individual way). If you share your thoughts, and emotions tied to these thouhts, that you've accumulated, from all the book you've read, you'd feel much lighter. Otherwise, you'd have gigantic mass of things in your head, that feel unshareble. If you have at least one person irl, that you can seriously (ideally, jokingly as well) discuss politics, religion and philosophy, there's no way you'll feel lonely. If you don't, take a break from reading, or at least from finding yet another diametrically different branch of philosophy (even tho it's tempting for an intellectual person) and try to find someone. Having too much in your mind of what you can share only with anonymous people on imageboard is what makes you lonely. On the other hand, it's still better than nothing.

>>24478940 (OP)
It sounds like you are reading without understanding. Instead accepting your own immediate interpretations and missing the nuances which reveal the intent of the author. Read diligently, OP. Go slow from now until you develop the habit.

>>24479485
>Brothers Karamazov
I think you should try visual novels anon. I agree with you on the fact that 90% of games out there that are hailed for "mature themes and story" are childish highschool melodrama babble tier at best. I still like alot of horror games like the silent hill series though, that use imagery and sound as symbolism for story elements, also CRPGS like the first few fallouts, vampire masquerade or even disco elysium have some pretty solid and well written dialogue. But yea, i cant take games like TLOU seriously anymore because of this too.

>>24481332
Well my point is there's plenty of well written games out there that push the medium to its full extent, you just have to kinda go out there and look for it amidst the sea of normie melodrama that becomes forgotten after a month or so.
Play games like pathologic 2, the first deus EX (dont play the sequels they are all awful), system shock 1 and 2...go read fullmetal daemon muramasa and wonderful everyday, changed my entire perspective on story telling in vidya and how half of the bullshit that comes out these days thinks the only way to do it is by slapping you with 30 minute cutscenes and "just tell me a story" modes.

>>24479820
>negative emotions, when shared,
Unfortunately people don't want to hear it. THey'll say I'm not your therapist and shun you. People are cruel in reality.

>>24478940 (OP)
Become the next Quijote, Anon.

>>24478940 (OP)
Reading is a surrogate too. You were fucked up from the start. It's partly genetic and partly your upbringing that have trapped you in this pitiful existence where you cannot find purpose in anything and everyone around you seems like a clueless automaton that's not worth trying to connect with.
No amount of books will save you, no great philosopher has an answer that will satisfy you, at least not for more than a few weeks. If you look back at all your epiphanies that seemed so important at the time you will see that none of them have changed your long-term course through life.

>>24481365
Yeah, it's rare. But I hope, that in all the literary knowledge and wisdom you've accumulated, are at least some things that excite you in a positive way. You can't be that masochistic, so that you read only dreadful things, right anon? ... *nervous smile* ... right? Fuck, I now realize that I never really studied /lit/ charts. Maybe there's indeed some heavy stuff.

>>24481343
>fullmetal daemon muramasa, wonderful everyday
My dear weeb, your post tries to imply, that you're the Brothers Karamazov poster. But you're not. That's me. And I would never touch stuff like this. VN's are really not for me. I've played only the /v/'s Snoot Game. But I got bored of it and didn't finish it.

>>24481332
>90% of games out there that are hailed for "mature themes and story" are childish highschool melodrama babble tier at best
>i cant take games like TLOU seriously anymore because of this too.
Amen.

no.
reading doesn't fuck you up, but your reaction to reading can do so. books aren't magical objects, they don't inflict torments on you for flipping through their pages.

>>24478940 (OP)
Just pretend to like stuff lol like just fit in lmao